The Barbed-Wire Kiss (13 page)

“I guess I was thinking about all the things that had happened since I left.”

“So why did you call me?”

“Like I said. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“That’s why you called yesterday. How about today?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“No.”

“You think too much, Harry. You always did. It’s not a good thing.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Tell me, how did you end up a cop? It’s the last thing I would have expected from you.”

“I was with the state police. It’s a little different.”

“How long?”

“Twelve years, give or take a couple months.”

“What did you do there?”

“When I quit, I was a detective with the Major Crimes Unit. We handled high-profile cases, helped out local police on homicide investigations when they requested it. That sort of thing.”

“You didn’t drive around, give people tickets?”

“I did for a while. All troopers do. Four years of that and I was promoted to road detective. Did that for two years and then put in for MCU.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“I had an accident.”

“A car accident?”

He shook his head. “I was shot.”

She straightened. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t long after Melissa died. Coming home one night, I stopped a car that was driving erratically. When I went up to the window, a woman shot me.”

“Why?”

“We never found out. She panicked, maybe they had something in the car. I don’t know. The driver got away.”

“Where were you shot?”

He touched his stomach. “It went in the front and out the back and managed not to hit any major organs along the way: I was in the hospital for a while. But that was two years ago now.”

“What happened to the woman?”

“She died.”

“How?”

“I shot her.”

She watched him, said nothing.

“I could have gone back,” he said. “But I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“My grandmother had left me a house and some money, enough to get by for a while. After Melissa died, I decided I needed a change. I sold the house in Metuchen, moved out to Colts Neck. I’d only been there about a month when I got hurt. When the time came to go back, I couldn’t do it. So I took a partial pension instead, handed in my papers.”

“What have you been doing since?”

“Not much. This and that.”

The wind moved the branches above their heads. They watched a young couple head back to the parking lot, a boy of about four or five between them. They each held one of his hands.

“It’s getting late,” she said. “I should get going.”

“Is he home?”

“He will be.”

“I can’t see it.”

“What?”

“You and him.”

She looked at him, then turned away.

“I have to go,” she said.

They walked side by side to the parking lot. When they reached the BMW, she got out her keys, slid behind the wheel. He closed the door for her, stood there with his hands still on it.

“You never asked,” he said. “About the money.”

“Does it concern me?”

“I guess not.”

“Then that’s why I didn’t ask.”

She started the engine and a bell began to ding inside the car. She looked over at where the Mustang was parked.

“Reliving your teenage years?” she said.

“I was four when that car came out.”

“It’s you.”

“We’ll go for a ride sometime.”

She smiled at that. “Maybe.”

She pulled on her seat belt, put the car in gear. The bell stopped. She looked up at him, held his gaze.

“So,” he said. “I’ll see you around. Maybe.”

“You never know.”

He stepped away as she backed out. He watched her drive past the gate, saw the sun flare in her hair for just an instant before the car vanished down the narrow, sloping road that led back down the hill.

The bundle of money sailed through the air, landed on the coffee table, and slid to the edge. He caught it before it went over.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Bobby said. He took another bundle from the purse-sized canvas bank bag, tossed it after the first. “Fifteen grand,” he said. “Not bad for two days’ work.”

They were in Bobby’s living room, the afternoon sun streaming through the windows. Harry sat straddling a kitchen chair. He picked up the second bundle, thumbed it, saw mostly new bills. The stacks were bound with thick brown rubber bands.

“What did you do?” he said.

“What didn’t I do.” Bobby put the bag on the table, dropped down on the couch. “Five of that is from cash advances on our credit cards. We’ll be paying interest on it until the fucking cows come home. But at least I don’t have to worry about Citibank sending someone around to break my kneecaps.”

He picked up the guitar from where it leaned against the wall.

“And the rest?” Harry said.

Bobby strummed a minor chord with his thumb.

“I called in a couple favors. Got a two-week advance at work and a loan from my boss. He wasn’t happy about it, but I’d agreed to help crew his boat when he takes it down to Lauderdale this fall, so he didn’t want to blow that. And he knows that if it comes down to it, I can work for free for the next six months and it’s no skin off his ass.”

“He ask what it was for?”

“Yeah, and I lied. But the real indignity”—he pointed at the money—“is that six of that is from Janine’s father.”

“I didn’t think you two spoke.”

“We don’t. But it turns out Janine talked to him last week. I had no idea. If I had, I probably would have said no.”

“Pride is maybe not the most useful quality right now.”

“He came through, I’ll give him that. And she managed to get it out of him without telling him what it was for, either. That’s the amazing part.”

“Almost twenty-four grand. Halfway there.”

“I’ve got a few moves left too. I think I might be able to come up with some more before too long.”

“Maybe you didn’t need my help after all.”

“No, I did. You helped me get my head on straight about this. Once I got my mind around the idea of actually having to pay him, I started figuring out ways to make it work. I guess I needed that kick in the ass.”

“So the light at the end of the tunnel’s getting brighter?”

“So bright I need shades. How are we going to do it this time?”

“I’ll leave that up to him. I’ll contact him, let him name a time and place. He won’t have expected this much so soon.”

“You trust him?”

“That’s a question you should have asked yourself a while back, isn’t it?”

“I mean now. You’ve met with him, talked to him. Do you trust him?”

“Not much. But he wants his money, I can tell you that. He’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he gets it, even if that means doing nothing. He’s had a taste now, he won’t spit the hook.”

“Let’s hope. So tell me about Jimmy’s apartment.”

“Not much to tell. When he left, he left in a hurry. Most, if not all, of his clothes are still there.”

“You had a good look around?”

“As much as I could. There’s nothing there that helps.”

“That’s too bad. I was hoping you might find something to help make sense out of all this.”

“Just this: No one else had been through that apartment before me, I’m pretty sure of that. If somebody took him off and they knew where he lived, chances are they would have gone back and torn the place apart to see what they could find. There was no sign anybody had been there.”

“So he ran out on me?”

“Looks that way, yeah. There aren’t too many other ways to read it.”

“You think he went to his sister’s?”

“It’s possible. I’ll check into it, see what I can find out. But in the meantime, we need to get our priorities straight.”

“Meaning?”

“The issue here is getting Fallon his money, not if Jimmy screwed you or not. Your house is on fire, forget about looking for the match.”

“You don’t see it the way I do. He was my friend. I trusted him.”

“You want to know what happened, I understand that. But it’s time to cut your losses. You told me this was a one-shot deal….”

“It was.”

“Then write it off as experience. If he does come back—a big if—the best thing you could do is pretend you don’t know him. There could be things going on here you’re not even aware of. You don’t know what people he’s been dealing with or what he’s done in the interim. Could be he’s already attracted police attention, or even the DEA, if he’s traveling around trying to unload a kilo of heroin. They could be after him already for something else. You have no way of knowing.”

“Or they could be after me.”

“I doubt it at this point. You’d know it if they were. It could be that if they do nail him for something, he might try to sell you out. But then it’s only his word against yours. There’s no evidence. It’ll never fly.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“You’ve got a chance to reverse this situation here, break clean. You get involved with Cortez again—in any capacity—and all bets are off. You pop up at a DEA surveillance or on a wiretap talking about all this, and boom. Even if you never get convicted—even if the case is so weak it doesn’t stand a chance of going to trial—they’ll take everything you own. The cars, the boat. They’ll seize all your assets, lock up your bank account so you can’t get near it. In the meantime, some lawyer’s going to be bleeding you dry the entire time.”

“I get the idea.”

Harry opened the bank bag, put the cash inside. Bobby watched him.

“We’re just going to hand that over to him,” he said. “It almost doesn’t seem right.”

Harry zipped the bag shut.

“Right has got nothing to do with it,” he said.

At noon the next day, he called the Sand Castle, left a message and his number. Thirty minutes later his phone rang.

“It’s been a while, Sergeant Rane. You probably don’t even remember me.”

“I remember you, Mickey. I heard you were back up here.”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? Couldn’t keep away.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m returning your call. Sounds like things got screwed up the other day.”

“He was supposed to meet me there. He didn’t show. That’s why I didn’t go in.”

“I don’t blame you. He got tied up at the last minute, had to send someone else. I talked to him, though, calmed him down. He understands. He’s sorry about the way things happened. I’m sure he’d like to tell you that himself.”

“You have a message for me?”

“He wants to talk with you, informally. Get to meet you, smooth some things out so there’s no more misunderstandings.”

“We’ve already met.”

“I heard about that. But things are a little different now. He knows you’re on the level. I told him I knew you, that we had worked together.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Close enough though, right? We wore the same uniform. You can’t put that kind of thing behind you. And we were too good for it, the both of us. We were better than the job.”

“Where does he want to meet?”

“He’s got tickets for the fights tomorrow night in Asbury, at the old Convention Hall on the boardwalk. He’s checking out some Mex kid he’s thinking about putting some money into. There’ll be a ticket in your name at the box office. Get there say nine or so, we’ll see how this kid does, then relax a little bit, have a drink. You can talk to the man right there, work all this out. Can you swing that?”

“Nine. I’ll be there.”

“And remember, this is just friendly. To talk, nothing else. So don’t bring anything. We’ll set up a time to take care of business later.”

“All right.”

“One other thing, Harry. This is just for you. So come alone.”

“What are you worried about?”

Dunleavy laughed. “Worried? Lighten up, Harry. You take things too seriously. He wants to talk, get a couple things settled, get to know you a little. That’s all.”

“Okay.”

“Then we’ll see you there. Looking forward to it.”

Convention Hall was a flat-topped concrete building that loomed over the desolate north end of the Asbury Park boardwalk. It stretched out over the beach on pilings, its big windows throwing light onto the sand. It had been built in the 1920s, when Asbury was one of the most popular tourist destinations on the East Coast. Harry’s mother had often talked of attending dance marathons there during World War II, when the town was full of British sailors on R&R, billeted in the hotels along the beach.

Those hotels were long gone now, and the hall’s fortunes had faded with the city’s. Despite a partial restoration a few years back, paint still peeled from the outside walls and cracks webbed the highest windows.

There was a single ticket in his name at the box office. He gave it to the elderly man working one of the three doors, took the torn stub that was handed back, and went through into the hall.

The ring was set up in the center of the floor, with rows of metal folding chairs on all four sides. The chairs in the first five rows on each side were painted red, the others were a uniform gray. Wooden seats rose off the floor on all sides, climbing bleacherlike to the high windows.

The seats around the ring were mostly occupied, but the bleachers were less than half full. Old chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, cigarette smoke gathering around them. The walls were lined with peeling bas-reliefs on sea themes: shells and mermaids, fin-tailed cherubs. A half-visible King Neptune looked down from high on the far wall.

In the ring, two black men circled each other, popping off jabs but not doing much damage. They clinched and the referee broke them up just as the bell rang to end the round. They retreated to their corners and were met with a chorus of boos from ringside.

He looked at his ticket stub. His seat was off the floor on the right side of the ring, halfway up. As he started up the concrete steps, watching for row numbers, he heard the next round begin. Most of the faces in the crowd were black or Hispanic. They ignored him as he went past, found his row. The seats around his were empty.

In the ring, things were picking up. The bigger fighter was moving with renewed energy, tagging his opponent with jabs, then following through with solid rights. A buzz of approval ran through the crowd.